Do a search below using the city or postal code search box if your city is not listed above.
Get dining news including restaurant closures and qualify for giveaways.
Judas Goat Taberna is a tiny 28-seat Spanish-inspired tapas bar in Blood Alley. Small plates are influenced by Spain, Italy, France, and beyond.
Went by on a weeknight and it was about 3/4 full, not as busy as I expected. Just beside Salt on Blood Alley. Tried several items:
Bruschetta - Peppers and goat chese - good and stewed mushrooms - good.
Beef Brisket meat balls - a bit too mushy and fell apart, tomoto sauce tasted like it came from a can - average, Veal Sweatbreads - very good, Braised Pork belly - best dish of the night, lamb cheeks - very good, Gin pressed Watermelon - didn't like this, worst dish, scallop tartare- just ok and the crips prosciutto salad - very good.
Overall some hits and misses with the dishes. Hot items are prepared outside the restaurant and reheated in zip lock bags. Open kitchen atmosphere. Small place thus cozy but ambiance is good. Service was very good. Value was just ok with dishes ranging from $6-$10 and portions are pretty small. Would return to try some others.
Four of us decided to check it out. The place is small! people on the other side of the room could hear our conversation loud & clear. Two of us were kinda sitting in the "kitchen" but that's ok, it's still a cool joint. There's a huge garage door-style window that looks out into Blood Alley and the interesting activities out there. The service was great and attentative but then again, there were almost as many staff as patrons.
Now the food & drink...Sangria @ $6 tasted nice but was in a tiny tiny glass. Jasmine tea @$4 (for tea?). We had sablefish, potted prawns, beet salad, Lamb Cheek, Pickled peppers, etc.. pretty much most things on the menu. The beets were good but portions small. My biggest gripe was the Trio of Salami at $26!! which was four razor-thin slices of three or four different salamis. I'm sorry but for $26 that's sad.
Total bill with two alcoholic drinks was north of $170 not incl tip. 10 people could eat & drink at the Irish Heather for that.
We made reservations for Judas Goat for a Saturday night, and were excited to try the place out. We were welcomed warmly and took our seats at the reserved table by the window. The place is small, but they don't advertise that they are a large restaurant so you have to expect it to be "cozy". Cozy is too nice a word though, because the ambiance was quite poor. In a true Spanish tapas bar, people are warm and friendly and forced to talk with one another because of the tight space, which is normally at standing room. Not true in Vancouver however, and this place was no exception. Very cool, snobby clientele. But that can't be helped in this city so let's focus on the restaurant itself. We promptly ordered two beers (European) which were delicious and cold, and asked for a dish of olives to start while we viewed the limited menu card. You are supposed to use the pencil and card provided to order your food, but the list is so small that that really is overkill. The dish of olives they brought us was so tiny I was shocked! Maybe 8 olives could be squeezed into it. I decided it was a miss, but was still hopeful that the rest of our experience could be positive. Then we ordered the tuna tartar and the roasted hazelnuts just to start, as we were expecting on having a long, lazy evening with delicious food. After these two little dishes came out I realized that our dreams would never come into fruition at Judas Goat. The dish of nuts, I think $7, was just as small as the bowl of olives, and the tuna was LITERALLY one bite ($3 for one bite, go figure). After seeing that I was just plain ol' insulted! The service was just okay, and although they did take the time to tell us all about the yummy ingredients in our bite of tuna, it leaned towards the slow, unenthusiastic side. This is not the happening, stylish place we had hoped to hang out at for the evening while enjoying great spanish tapas! Not at all. The portions are tiny and the prices way too high, they were playing Bob Marley (reggae music at a spanish tapas place? At least give us something current!), and the energy is very low. I would not go back again. A very disappointing evening at Judas Goat.
| 1. | Salt Tasting Room (0 m) |  |
| 2. | Bourbon, The (52 m) | |
| 3. | Apres-midi Teahouse (58 m) |  |
| 4. | Boneta (69 m) |  |
| 5. | Coffee Bar (74 m) | |
| 6. | Six Acres (74 m) | |
| 7. | Old Spaghetti Factory (81 m) | |
| 8. | Cork & Fin (81 m) | |
| 9. | L'Abattoir (82 m) | |
| 10. | Vera's Burger Shack (84 m) |
